Tourism Australia’s mascot Ruby the Roo has a new batting partner in Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins, who stars alongside her in a multi-million-dollar campaign aimed at enticing more Indian travellers Down Under.
Timed ahead of the Australia-India Test series opener, which starts in Perth on Friday, the new advertising blitz showcases iconic tourist spots like Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland, Kangaroo Island in South Australia, Western Australia’s Rottnest Island and Sydney’s Palm Beach.
Tourism Australia said the Howzat for a Holiday? campaign — which features a series of cheeky social media videos and a television commercial — is expected to reach 50 million Indian viewers. The campaign will also include billboards, signage and print advertisements across India.
Tourism Australia is hoping to tap into India’s growing middle class while also recovering from setbacks in the Chinese market, which has been hit hard by geopolitical tensions and the pandemic.
An image from Tourism Australia’s new Howzat for a Holiday campaign. (Supplied: Tourism Australia)
Managing director Phillipa Harrison said Indian visitor numbers had already surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
“With a population of more than 1.4 billion people and more Indians looking to travel, the potential in the Indian market is endless and we see the upcoming Test series as our chance to get on the front foot and promote our country to a captive TV audience,” Ms Harrison said.
“The aviation links between India and Australia have never been stronger.
“The market was one of the first to fully recover after the pandemic and, according to forecasts, the number of Indians travelling to Australia will double 2019 levels by 2028.”
Australia targeting Indian tourists
The new campaign builds on Tourism Australia’s $125 million Come and Say G’day global initiative launched in 2022 after borders reopened.
Ruby the Roo returns in this latest marketing push and engages in some playful sledging with the Aussie cricket captain.
“Oi Pat, shouldn’t you be at training?” Ruby ribs Cummins, who fires back, “Shouldn’t you be on a key ring?”
“Where are your whites?” Ruby asks, taking another swing, to which Cummins counters, “Where are your pants?”
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While the banter is light-hearted, the ads have a serious objective: building hype for Australian tourism within the lucrative Indian market.
India is already the fastest-recovering international market for Australian tourism operators post-COVID. About 424,000 Indian visitors are expected by the end of this year, making it Australia’s fourth-largest visitor market, according to Tourism Research Australia (TRA).
Last week, a Tourism Australia delegation, including state and territory tourism organisations, travelled to New Delhi and Mumbai and struck a new partnership with national carrier Air India to schedule more flights.
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, senior lecturer in tourism at the University of South Australia, said India was an important market for Australia, particularly with Chinese visitor numbers still lagging at just over half what they were pre-pandemic.
“The tourism industry doesn’t like to talk about geopolitics, but it’s been very tense for quite a while,” Dr Higgins-Desbiolles said.
“There’s two key factors: pandemic and the anti-China rhetoric that came from that, and then the strategic tensions with the United States, and the fact that Australia has aligned itself more strongly with the US.
“The tourism industry will be looking at the geopolitics and seeing that the tensions with China are likely to continue, and so it would be smart to diversify the markets that we depend on.”
The MCG also has a big role in Tourism Australia’s new campaign. (Supplied: Tourism Australia)
Why cricket is key
She says it makes sense for Australian tourism to target India’s 1.4 billion-strong population and growing middle class by leveraging a shared love of cricket.
“We’re both cricket-mad nations and both populations will travel to see cricket games,” she said.
“Cricket is very popular in India and a source of national pride.
“So I think a marketing campaign built around that and sports enthusiasm and sports tourism has a great deal of potential.”
Tourism Australia is using Pat Cummins’s star appeal in the campaign. (Supplied: Tourism Australia)
It is not the first time Tourism Australia has enlisted a cricket star to entice Indians to Australia.
Earlier this month, former cricketer David Warner starred in a social media campaign highlighting his favourite Australian holiday destinations.
In 2012, former fast bowler Brett Lee was also made an ambassador for Tourism Australia.
Australia will start as a favourite to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar trophy for the first time since 2017, when the first Test of the series begins on Friday in Perth.
